Since we at
cinemaseekers.com had the privilege of a personal interview
with the great Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi, let me
start with a few personal observations. It rarely happens
that upon meeting an artist, whom one has admired
for a long time, one is not in some way disappointed. Yet
our meeting with Zanussi was just such a rare case. As
anyone who watches our interview with him can see, this
man truly "lives" the questions he poses in his
films: what is the nature of fate, of redemption, of sin?
These are not merely abstract, intellectual topics for him,
but rather profound concerns of his soul. It is no
wonder that students all over the world feel attracted and
inspired by his noble strivings in the very midst of today's
general slide towards apathy and irresponsibility.

There are many films, which stand out as
exceptional in Zanussi's output: "The Structure of
Crystals", "Face to Face", "Family Life", "Illumination".
However, a particularly special place is occupied by "A Year of the Quiet
Sun". It represents one of those rare moments in
cinema, when all the elements come together to form a
magical, yet totally natural work of art. One can, of
course, analyze the perfection of the screenplay and
the subtleties of acting, but ultimately it is the
indefinable elements that turn this film into
a transcendental experience, when viewed as a whole.
From
the very first (somewhat awkward) encounter between the two
main characters, we sense that they have a special
connection, which draws them together with irresistible
force. He is an American stationed in Poland at
the end of WWII, and she has just returned to her native,
war-ravaged country after the Nazi occupation. Speaking as
they do two different languages, they can barely say two
words to each other. Yet the attraction is unmistakable.
This, however, is not the "animal magnetism" of sexual
attraction so common and so misguidedly praised today, but a
deep sensing of a spiritual connection between two human
souls.

And it is the woman's soul in
particular, Emilia's (beautifully portrayed by Maja
Komorowska), which shines here in all its
natural beauty! It is worth noting, in passing, the
differences between Emilia's appearance and that of a
typical Hollywood image of womanhood. What a striking
contrast! One comes from the soul, has nothing to do with
physical features themselves, but beautifies them from
within with genuine feminine grace. The other (the
Hollywood type) is a beauty-substitute: it is all about
surface glamour, about the arousal of instincts, and it
substitutes feminine vanity for feminine charm. Not
coincidentally does the American man in the film (Scott
Wilson) chooses the more natural type of feminine
beauty (represented by Maja Komorowska) over the artificial
American type.

The
film's greatest achievement is that it manages to convey,
despite (or even through) the essentially wordless
communication of the characters, a sense that these two
people "belong" together and that this "belonging" has
already been predestined beforethey meet, before
the film even begins. They themselves "know" it, and this
sense of "knowing" empowers them to confront the
harsh political system of Poland, which acknowledges no
reality beyond what is visible to the earthly eyes (the
reality of a chair and a table, as Ingmar
Bergman once put it). The inner world of a human
being, his spiritual intuition, his ability to
distinguish right from wrong, purity from
impurity, true love from mere instinct, and his sensing
of the invisible threads of Fate which connect people -
all of these things are ridiculed and laughed at by the
so-called "realists". These "realists", however, can be
found in any political system, in any part of the world, in
any profession and on any level of education. In truth, they
are the people, who have cut themselves off precisely from
thevery reality of life, since they
forcibly limit their perception of reality to the
minutest part of the Universe - that part, which is visible
only to our very limited earthly senses.

The
totalitarian system, which is so vividly portrayed in "A
Year of the Quiet Sun", actively and aggressively promotes
the basest and coarsest aspects of life, acknowledging
the material reality as the only reality and
denying man's higher spiritual nature. This attitude is
actually not confined to any particular political system,
but it does tend to manifest in the most brutal
forms under the socialist system. And this
is another reason why "A Year of the
Quiet Sun" is so valuable: it allows us to observe
what this type of brutality does to people - both to the
perpetrators and to the victims. When Emilia's
flat is ransacked by the thugs (who are, perhaps,
connected with the police), who do not even stop
at beating her elderly and sick mother, it affects one so
deeply that one can't stop wondering: are these people
even human? What happened to make them lose their humanity
to such an extent? Have they always been like this? And do
we have anything in common with them? One usually goes round
and round in these circles of questions, not finding a way
out, as in a labyrinth...